Business in Australia just got a lot tougher for one of India's richest men, Gautam Adani, thanks to a remarkable switch away from investment in new coal mines by another super-rich business leader, Ivan Glasenberg.

Until earlier today, Glasenberg championed the heavy exposure of the company he heads, Glencore, in Australian coal, producing an estimated 100 million tons a year from an extensive portfolio of mines.

But in a shock announcement that coincided with the release of Glencore's 2018 profit statement in London, Glasenberg said there would be no new coal mines developed by Glencore.

Bowing To Investor And Political Pressure

In bowing to pressure from major investors who have become concerned about exposure to coal, Glasenberg has put enormous pressure on Adani to follow suit and abandon his plans for the development of the $10 billion Carmichael mine in the northern Australian state of Queensland.

As well as investor pressure there has been a build up of political pressure on Adani's plans for the mine in which the Indian company has already invested heavily on design, planning and early stage site clearing for a combined mine, railway line and port facilities.

Over the past few days, the Carmichael proposal had threatened to split the Labor Party, which is in government in Queensland, and widely tipped to form the next national government after elections later this year.

Jobs Versus The Environment

Supporters of the Adani plan, mainly from the union movement which is keen for the jobs to be created by a big new mine have clashed with members of the same party who have strong environmental beliefs.

But if winning support for the mine has been difficult up until now it will be significantly more difficult after one of Australia's biggest existing producers of coal said it would no longer invest in new mines.

In a statement released in London, Glencore said that as one of the world's biggest mining companies it had "a role to play in enabling transition to a low-carbon economy."

Anything But Coal

The new plan for Glencore is to invest in commodities other than coal, such as copper, cobalt, nickel, vanadium and zinc, which underpin energy and mobility transformation–in other words electric cars.

The company said that it recognized climate-change science as set out by the United Nations which meant it in order: "to deliver a strong investment case to our shareholders, we must invest in assets that will be resilient to regulatory, physical and operational risks related to climate change."

That means coal is not part of the future investment plans of Glencore with coal output limited to current production capacity.

The Glencore switch will be seized on by climate-change activists who earlier this month scored a notable win in a court case where they argued successfully that any new coal mine added to carbon emissions. That decision could have set a precedent to be used in a fresh attack on Adani's Carmichael plans, as will Glencore's no new coal mines policy.

Tim Treadgold has been writing about the mining and oil industries for more than 40 years